Plug In

Sir,

Having been a regular reader of your magazine for the past ten years, I have become accustomed to believing the reports made therein without question.

A recent report makes me realise that, your reporters are capable of writing down what they imagine, and not what they Actually see.

I am referring to the statement on p.428 May issue, “Peter Warr and Colin Chapman hardly need a radio to contact Nilsson”, along with a photo of these persons and their communications equipment.

Being the designer and maker of these systems, I would like to explain that it is not a radio, and never has been. It is a wired intercom system, consisting of an car defender type headset with boom microphone (noise-cancelling type) which is obvious in the photo, wired to a small pocket-sized amplifier. The helmet of the driver, being suitably wired with earphones and microphone, enables the amplifier to be plugged in, and communication to be simplified between the driver and pit crew.

An extra coupling on the amplifier enables these systems to be interconnected as shown in your photo where Mr. Warr and Mr. Chapman are obviously conducting a conversation between themselves, and as the car coupling cable is in Colin Chapman’s hand Nilsson is not included in the conversation. Lotus have three such sets at the moment, and anyone who is talking to a driver, can be joined by another party using such equipment, or simply use them for easy communication between pit members.

The Brabham team have two such sets, but use a slightly different headset. Having corrected your magazine however, I would like to mention that your associated publication Motoring News described the set as “a neat shortwave radio” as long, ago as April of last year, and although we have supplied radio links to racing teams, the use of radio is really only beneficial in long-distance touring car events, where news of impending disaster can be used to shorten pit-stop durations, etc., and as F1 is too short for pit stops nowadays, radio is not really such an advantage.

York. J. DAVIES

[Quite right !—Ed]